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I hope it's in Sci-am, because I have about 300 news scientists but only a handful of sci-ams. Give me a day or two and I'll see if I can dig it out.

Nothing wrong with being curious. In fact, if you were not curious I would find that more "wrong". Sorry if my reply seemed to be harsh or offensive. It was not intended that way. kind regards

I see no evidence to support that assertion, or any logical argument that would lead to that conclusion. Maybe I am just dense. kind regards

That just begs the question, IMHO: If you don't know the meaning then how can you claim it has any meaning. kind regards

No, and I never claimed to have a proof. I made my statement based on logic. The logic being that to be outside space and time is a meaningless statement because without space and time what have you got? No space and no time. When and where is that precisely? kind regards

No worries, and thanks for being congenial about it. kind regards

Fafalone, I feel I owe you an apology. I took the time to download the programs and view what you had offered. Had I know how much information was there (200 pages +) I probably would'nt have asked for the format change. Anyways, it was only a small thing. No hard feelings I hope? There's none here (hey, I might need to pick your brains in the future. I don't need to make an enemy of you and certainly don't desire it). As to some of the other comments here. Grow up people. That's the worst kind of bandwaggoning and supposedly intelligent people should have more pride in their behaviour than to think a couple of misplaced words describes someones whole character. If I find a way to convert them and keep their quality I will let you know. kind regards

:lame: Sheesh, don't lose your rag mate. I made simple request and you immediately call me lazy and now I should f' off. I can see why you're not in public relations. kind regards

Hang on, I'm lazy because you expect everyone else to download programs to view something you are offering? Now add in all the other 5 minutes that other people without these programs would have to take. 10 minutes of your time v. 5x people's time. kind regards

We'd have to re-write the physics books. kind regards

No. There is no "outside" the universe. Not even a vacuum. kind regards

I read an article sometime back, I think in New Scientist (or maybe Scientific American) that, simply put, said the reason we cannot reach absolute zero is because in trying to remove the last quanta of energy we have to introduce energy into the system which, of course, then replaces the energy we are trying to remove. I'll try and find this article if anyone is that interested (but only if someone specifically request it). kind regards

I'm the same. I know SR pretty well but GR is a little vague to me. I too will be researching this and will let you know if I turn up anything that confirms or refutes my suggestions. kind regards

This is always a hard one for people to get to grips with (some are lucky and can make the conceptual leap easily). The Universe is expanding but it does not fill anything up. Hard to imagine as it sounds, but the Universe is "making" space whilst expanding not expanding into a space. :scratch: kind regards

Its is a pain when you click quote instead of edit. Just use "back page" on your browser. kind regards

I was under the impression that the microwave background is made of particles. These being the photons that mark the time when the Universe became "transparent" to radiation (apprx. t=300,000 years. if my memory serves). kind regards

I'd love to view these but I'm not installing two programs I don't want just to do so. Is there any chance you could convert them to a more familiar format? kind regards

I think you are correct. However, it's speed of motion isn't the critical factor. The critical factor is that it has to take every step on the road to infinite time dilation. No matter how far away from the BH you are, you still have to cover every step on that road to infinity. The important thing to remember is that the lifespan of the BH (I used the 10^60 years figure in my example) is as measured from flat space at infinity above the EH. As you move towards the BH you would have to revise this calculation. You are in a different frame of reference to the BH. As you move closer to the BH your calculation for the lifespan of the BH would be revised down (this is an assumption on my part and one of the things that I would like someone better in the know than myself to verify or correct me on). As you get closer and closer to the BH your revision would make the BH's lifespan shorter and shorter. My reasoning follows: I am in flat space at infinity above the BH. You are in your spaceship between me and the BH. I am looking at the clock on your spacehip (we'll ignore the mechanism for this and the ensuing time delays/shifting of frequency of the signals reaching me/climbing out of a gravity well, it's just time I want to discuss here). Your clock is ticking half as fast a mine. You look back at me at my clock. My clock is ticking twice as fact as yours. (NB. In GR we don't get the same symmetry as SR because GR is accelerated reference frames and these break the symmetry). From my perspective I calculate the BH will exist for 10^60 years. How long do you calculate it will exist, bearing in mind that my calculation was done from a frame of reference that is moving (temporally) twice as fast relative to you? kind regards

Hmm, you didn't quote anything so I'm not entirely sure what you are referring to when you say "see my first point". I can assure you I have read more than 1 book on the subject. I found "Black Holes and Time Warps" not only superior to Hawking but brimming with information. Hey, I just had a thought. I wonder if there are any calculations in the notes at the back that could help solve this problem. I'll get back to you on this with what I turn up. kind regards

I could be wrong but I think that only applies in Special Relativity when adding uniform velocities. GR is accelerations and non-uniform velocities. kind regards

This is a little programmable applet that show you what the universe would look from various points above, at, or below the EH of a BH. Click here for some fun physics kind regards

No. I wish I could afford to goto any University right now. But I digress... Student on my profile is kind of tongue in cheek in that I study physics (and now math) in my spare time. I use it to indicate that I don't know everything but I am capable of learning. kind regards

I wish I was educated enough to be able to do that. Maybe in 5 years of so. kind regards

Wow, didn't expect such a lot of replies so quickly. Thanks for taking the time to read my ideas. I just want to add some comments that may serve to make people think again on some of their replies. A black hole (BH) is charactersed by it having an event horizon. The event horizon (EH) "marks the spot" where the gravity becomes so extreme that not even light can escape from beyond it. The important thing to remember is that General Relativity (GR) is a classical theory. ie. there is a continual "spectrum" that leads from flat space to the event horizon. This means that any and every point between flat space and the event horizon has an associated gravity and time dilation. At the event horizon time is dilated infinitely. However, classical GR demands that to reach that point of infinite dilation one must cover every point that leads to it (no, I'm not resurrecting Zeno ). You could get to a point just outside the EH that equates to a time dilation of 1sec taking 10^1,000,000 seconds for an observer in flat space. But don't forget, GR demands that I must take every step on the road to infinity. This means that as I move infinitesimally closer to the EH I enter a higher time dilation. The next moment the dilation would be even worse and might calculate to 1 sec taking 10^1,000,000,000 seconds. And again. The next moment the dilation might be 10^1,000,000,000,000. And so on all the way to infinity. One thing that is clear is that the closer you get the the EH the steeper this dilation gradient is. ie. moving 1mm towards the BH when you are far from it doesn't make for much of a change of time dilation. But if you are 1mm above the EH a movement of 1mm would make for a massive change in dilation. In fact, that last 1mm would involve an infinite change in dilation. An infinite amount of time is plenty for a black hole of any size to have evaporated by Hawking Radiation. Anyways, just some more thoughts to ponder. kind regards

Black holes (BH from hereon) are curious objects. The curious thing about them is that if you could watch something falling towards a BH you would never see it cross the event horizon (EH from hereon). For example, if I was watching a clock fall toward a BH, I would notice that it slows down more and more as it gets closer to the EH (it also would get dimmer and dimmer). This will always be the case from any view outside the EH no matter how long you wait. The clock will never be seen to cross the EH. It will slow down and then appear to be frozen (it won't be frozen but will be moving imperceptably). So does the clock ever actually cross the EH of a BH? I say it doesn't. My reasoning for my conclusion: Reason #1: Imagine you are freely falling feet first towards a BH (we'll ignore the "spaghettifying" effects of the increasingly extreme gravity it's just the persepective that I want to deal with). Just below your feet (and closer to the BH than yourself) is a clock also in free fall. ie. as you fall the clock will always be below you and falling at a slightly faster rate because it is experiencing a greater acceleration due to the higher gravity it is experiencing than yourself. As you get closer and closer to the EH you watch the clock. It starts to slow down. This is because as you get closer to the EH the gravity gradient increases. However, you will never see that clock cross the EH as described above. But dig this, not only that, but you are still above the clock. You are still farther away from the EH than the clock. So if you never see the clock cross the EH and you are always farther from the EH than the clock, then you never cross the EH. Reason #2: According to Stephen Hawking a BH isn't entirely black. Due to Heisenberg Uncertainty it is able to lose mass. They "evaporate", and have a temperature which is inversely proportional to their mass. ie. the more massive they are, the less they radiate and the colder they are, and vice versa. Rough figures indicate (1) that for a BH with a mass of 3 to 4 solar masses will take something in the region of 10^60 years to completely evaporate. This is an extraordinarily long time (we don't even know for sure if the Universe will live that long but for my purposes here we'll assume that it will). That 10^60 years calculation is made from the perspective of an outside observer, however, remember when we watch the clock fall towards a black hole we will never see it cross the EH. In effect, we could watch the black hole for 10^60 years and we will never see the clock cross the EH whether we are in stationary orbit above the BH or are falling behind the clock towards the BH. According to GR there is a point above the EH of a BH where the dilation is not only equal to the lifespan of the BH, but greater than the lifespan of the BH. In fact, GR says that there will be a dilation above the EH that is equal to the entire lifespan of the Universe! ie. there is always a point above the EH that would make the black hole evaporate before you get to it's EH. My Conclusion: Black holes cannot eat anything. In fact, I'm going to stick my neck out (and hope I don't lose my head!) and say that the current picture of black holes is wrong, and if they do exist, then they cannot "eat" and "starve to death". If you can find some holes in my reasoning then please point them out to me. (1) - 3-4 solar masses takes 1060 years to evaporate figures from Stephen Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time". kind regards